“Georgia: History of Green Politics” is composed of the publications of several researchers. Together these publications describe the most interesting historic chapters of green movement in Georgia. The book describes the roots of establishment of green movement and the Green Party, the directions and the results of legislative activity of the Green Faction in the Georgian Parliament, and main factors causing the weakening of the Party.

The book studies the features, recent processes and probable future trends of migration between Visegrad countries and Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. In former socialist bloc migration was strongly controlled by the state, border crossing was limited and even militarized along the iron curtain. After 1990 mobility has rapidly increased in the region generating mass (out)migration. EU integration of Visegrad counties, especially the implementation of Schengen border control system, has installed new boundaries between the EU member V4 countries and their Eastern partners. Recently the global crisis has also redrawn the migratory processes in the region.

This article deals with the fast food establishments that can be found in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi as of today. The article is divided into two sections, first interviews with the managers or the owners of the establishments and then we hear the voices of the costumers by a questionnaire that was left for the costumers to answer while they were visiting the establishments. The article and study should be seen as a first academic attempt to map out the fast food sphere in Tbilisi that is quite new on the gastronomic map of the country.

Shevchuk, Z. (2014). The Evolving Nature of the Armed Conflict in South Ossetia: From “Frozen” to “Hot” and Back. Obrana a strategie,14(1), 51-64.

This article explores the conflict processes in one of the most volatile regions in post-Soviet space – South Ossetia. The objective of the analysis is to bring more nuanced and explicit distinction to the understanding of the heterogeneous nature of the armed conflict. By studying the evolution of issues at stake and conflict processes we can trace the pattern of conflict behavior. The study focuses on an assessment of the extent to which ethnicity is merely a convenient common dominator to mobilize ethnic groups in the struggle over resources, land, or power. This study rejects the common notion that the contemporary conflicts in the South Ossetia can be understood as “unfinished business” from the past ethnic conflicts that had been “frozen” under the communist regime.

Azerbaijan and Georgia form the fulcrum of the South Caucasus East-West Corridor, which connects the North Atlantic water system, including the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Rhine-Main-Danube River-Canal system, with a Eurasian land route that reaches the Pacific Ocean. At the same time this corridor is the geopolitical key to Putin’s quest to recreate the Russian Empire. Moscow’s fear of the history-altering potential of a viable non-Russian corridor between the Black Sea and the Caspian makes the geopolitical struggle for this region a zero-sum game.

This paper analyses the various economic, political, and military pressure points that Russia can target to derail Georgia’s path to Europe. Georgia has decreased its dependency on Moscow substantially since its last dramatic conflict with Moscow in 2007. However, this memo argues that Russia still has the means to influence Georgia’s foreign-policy choices by attacking strategic bilateral vulnerabilities that include wine exports, remittances, investment, winter oil supplies, domestic divisions, and the occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

On June 27, Georgia will sign an Association Agreement with the EU – the same type of agreement that triggered revolution and crisis in Ukraine. Despite all efforts to reduce its dependency on Russia, Georgia remains in a vulnerable position. Russian pressure is to be expected, either in the run-up to the signing or in its aftermath, while Georgia will stay in the EU’s antechamber, without security guarantees from NATO. In view of Russian attempts to exert influence and a possible rise of Euroskepticism within Georgia, the EU’s challenge is to keep the country on the European track.

The publication consists of public policy documents written by Georgian and Russian experts. These articles focus on various aspects of Russia-Georgia relations: social forces in Russia and Georgia and their role in peacebuilding, the directions and limits of the opportunities for the normalization of relations between the two countries, the role of international players in the relations between Russia and Georgia, and economic factors shaping the process of normalization.

Russia is not likely to resort to overt political pressure on Georgia in the run-up to Georgia’s signing of the Association Agreement with the EU (27 June), and the NATO Summit in Wales (4–5 September). This is partly due to its weak levers and the fact that they cannot be strengthened within a short time span. Instead, Russia is likely to apply a dual strategy by strengthening its indirect ‘influence tools’ that are operating within Georgian society, as well as by continuing dialogue and pragmatic cooperation with the Georgian leadership – at least for the time being. Despite the fact that the Russian intervention in Ukraine is likely to deter and delay substantial progress in the cooperation between Georgia and Russia, both sides seem to be willing to continue on the path of ‘normalisation’. A practical compromise on the Georgian westward course seems to be emerging: in all likelihood Georgia will sign the Association Agreement with the EU without much Russian interference, but NATO will not offer Georgia a Membership Action Plan at the Summit.

Since independence, many post-Soviet states have witnessed a rise in religious tension, particularly between the predominant Orthodox churches, other faiths, and the secular requirements of modern governance. In Georgia, the bonds between the Georgian Orthodox Church and the state are longstanding and deep-seated. As Georgia moves toward greater association with the EU, however, there have been some shifts in church-state relations that have challenged principles of secularism and Westernization. They have raised questions of tolerance and, in the context of contemporary geopolitics, the implications of the relationship between the Kremlin, the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Between the two extreme options – immediately granting Georgia a membership action plan at the upcoming summit in Cardiff, Wales or handing Tbilisi more empty promises – lies an alternative: the formal declaration by alliance leaders that Georgia can be admitted to NATO at any given moment without a MAP. This would avoid providing Moscow with any pretext for further chicanery in the Caucasus, such as annexing South Ossetia and its fellow breakaway region, Abkhazia. At the same time, by removing the impediment of a MAP, such a step would restore the faith of Georgian leaders and the public in the vision of “joining the West.”